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For many years now, "self-esteem" has been synonymous with "self image," but that's not really what self-esteem is. Positive self-image is important - it's caring about yourself and seeing yourself as a unique and special individual simply because of who you are as a human being.
Self-esteem is a positive sense of one's own worth that is based on actually doing worthy things - it's that feeling you get when you've accomplished something, and it's a great feeling. Here's how to build it and help others lift theirs in the process.
Steps
- Do things and live life so that you impress yourself. There's only one way to elevate your self-esteem - earn your own respect. Many times we try to impress others but that's a fool's game. The person you really need to impress is you. Always seek to improve yourself against your own achievements, your own milestones, not anyone else's.
- Stop trying to win other's respect. Live your life with integrity and self-determination based on what impresses you, and respect will follow.
- When possible, walk away from people who don't respect you. When you can't, don't sink to their level. That can be difficult but it improves with practice. It makes a good goal in itself to learn not to sink to their level when people disrespect you. Understand that they may have a generic reason to disrespect you such as prejudice or by character they may be malicious. If it's a misunderstanding, try sorting it out - when a liar spreads stories about you it can be hard to sort out what they said and spread the truth but it can cause people who'd otherwise take you as you are to treat you with disrespect. Understand the differences in those situations and absolutely never trust anyone who's lied about you behind your back again.
- While other people's opinions and ideas have their place in your life, don't set your life according to them. Listen and take on board what works for you but only internalize that which you believe improves you or works for because you have made a choice for yourself.
- Set goals and work toward them. They don't have to be pie-in-the-sky, they can just be gradual improvements. You could decide to learn to play the guitar, for example. Start by saving up to get a guitar, then learn one chord until you have it perfect, then another, then another. Get guitar books and sheet music from the library learning one song at a time or play by ear. Or learn to draw with art books, a sketchbook and pencils by practicing every day. A different example: you have a B- overall grade point average. Resolve to raise your GPA at least a half grade each semester until you are a B+, then you will renegotiate. Begin to study harder, join a study group or choose a study partner. As you begin to gain mastery of your schoolwork and see your GPA rise to a B and finally to a B+, you will have a solid sense of accomplishment - and your self-esteem will rise. Both daily success - "I studied tonight" and external success "I'm good enough to play guitar at a party and no one laughed at me" are different types of self esteem.
- Judge your goals wisely. Look at your real goals and interests in life. If your long term goal is to become an educated professional or get a free ride scholarship to college, then raising your grades is the first step in a long road to a large personal success. If you're raising your grades from B+ to A+ to please a critical parent that expects perfection, choose a self esteem goal that doesn't rest on their opinion of your success, such as learning to draw, play guitar, build a collection, tell jokes well, skills that will help you relax when you're successful in a high pressure career. You're already living one, something in your life has to be just from the heart. A good goal is something you would enjoy anyway even if no one knew you did it, no one paid for it and no one complimented it. That feeds the soul.
- Gain accomplishments and achievements. Study hard. Take that B+ and turn it into Honors by keeping it as a personal subject of study for one to three years. Or play hard at a sport. Even if you are only average, the more you practice, the better you will get, and that's an achievement of its own. Choose something to excel at, choose a goal, and work hard toward it until you achieve - even working toward bettering yourself for the sake of doing it is a worthy pursuit.
- Play to your strengths. If you run fast and aren't bulky or strong, maybe track is a better sport than football. If you're creative and dramatic, consider drama and audition for school plays. If you're great at math and hate slippery literature and arts subjects, seek out the Astronomy Club or Chess Club and build your skills in the areas that come easiest. Strengthen your native talents. It's good to have at least one goal like this that comes from exactly who you are and what you do best.
- It's also good to set goals that shore up your weaknesses. If you're brilliant in math and computer science, barely snagging D minus in English and afraid to talk to girls, setting the goals of getting your English grade up to a B minus and overcoming shyness are good for self esteem too. Someone else may not think of a C minus as a good grade in English, but when you raised it from a D minus and risked flunking every semester that is an important achievement, perhaps more difficult than pushing B minus to B plus.
- Value noble pursuits. Academics, the arts and sports are time-honored traditional pursuits which can bring out the best in a person by testing intellectual and physical limits, and fostering individual and team efforts. You could write a novel, write an original piece of music, create a graphic novel or paint well enough to gain honors. Look at ways in which these noble pursuits can be carried on through life beyond school.
- Value harmless, self-rewarding pursuits. Knitting, gardening, quilting, woodworking, decorative painting, collecting, model building, fandom (music, sports, television, movie), fashion, Do It Yourself, trivia, games, reading are all things that harm no one and give self esteem by your competence in them. They also bring social support from others who share your passion. It doesn't need to be a high and noble pursuit to be a goal that matters to you and it doesn't have to earn you a living if it gives you lifelong pleasure and relaxation. Many of the arts and sciences can also fall into this category even if you don't follow a career in them or pursue them to professional level - rocketry clubs, community theater, open mike comedy or music and leisure painting are all still worthwhile even if you choose to remain amateur and do these things only because you love them. They will also give you a good basis for building a new social life anytime you relocate. If there isn't a club for it in your new location you can found one and others will be glad you did.
- Help someone. Volunteer at a retirement home or a homeless shelter. Get involved with your church in a ministry to the sick or the poor. Donate your time and service to a humane animal shelter. Be a Big Brother or Big Sister. Nothing is more rewarding than offering your time and talent to help others in need. Getting outside your own head and your normal circle of influence can be eye opening and humbling.
- Practice humility. No one was ever a greater public servant than Mother Teresa, she helped the poor, the sick and the dying, and never turned anyone away. Yet Mother Teresa was a strong, noble soul who knew that if she did not help these people, perhaps no one would. She fought a lifetime battle with chronic depression and won, she never quit or surrendered to it. She saw the value in each individual and never allowed herself to despair that her life's works might not change the world for millions - much of the time, she worked to relieve one soul's suffering at a time. That's real self-esteem: "I am only one person, but I can help these people." That's knowing and believing in the power of One Person to make a real difference. And making that difference one person at a time may be a humble goal, but it is a worthy one.
- Pass your skills and talents on to someone. Teaching someone your specialty will show you how much you really do know and have to offer. As you help a novice learn the skills you have honed, you will feel their admiration and respect for your prowess. In turn, you will be helping another develop those same skills, so that they may be passed on again.
- Allow children to build self-esteem honestly. Just because they're kids doesn't mean they're stupid - do you really think they don't know you let them win? Self-esteem isn't built by being handed a win. It's built by actually winning. Play a game with with your kid until he or she masters it - it can be anything: Dominoes, Scrabble, Pokemon, a video game, Hearts - and whatever you do, do not play down to him or her. When you win, celebrate. Don't belittle him or call him a loser, just say, "Yay, I win!" And then say, "Let's see, did you make any mistakes? Maybe you didn't - maybe it was just a bad draw. Let's look at your game and see where it could improve." Help him, show him how to improve, and play again. Eventually, he or she will beat you. When she/he does, tell him or her to stand up on the table and do a victory dance. Look at her or his face. See how your child feels when he/she knows he/she earned this win, fair and square, and on his or her own? It's a huge difference, because it tells the child they have the power to win, if he/she sticks with something and tries hard. It can set the tone for the way she or he goes at things the rest of her or his life. Don't "let" them win. By doing so you rob him of the chance to earn a win honestly.
- Children understand the difference between being handed a win because you love them and winning because they won in a competitive situation. Don't be surprised if a child hands you a win, ask yourself if you've been a sore loser if that happens.
- Encourage non-competitive activities and praise every step on the way to success rather than expecting perfection. It's good to have at least one goal that can only rest on comparing with your own previous performance, to keep from getting so wound up in pressure to succeed that any failure is catastrophic.
Video
Tips
- Discover the realistic limitations to your behavior and abilities. Allow yourself the mobility between success and failure. Forgiveness includes yourself.
- Nobody can give you self-esteem. You have to earn it yourself.
- Fandom, whether it's television, sports, movies, music, is a popular and effective type of goal and activity. Winning trivia contests in something you spend your free time enjoying is a mildly competitive activity that does build self esteem and strengthen memory in general. Don't forget that less official activities and pursuits are often less dependent on having school facilities and resources to pursue. Strong interests can also help you build and keep an active social life once school ends, even if you relocate for reasons of work. There will be other fans of your favorite music, shows, movies and sports in your new location too.
- Believe that you can make a difference, one person or task at a time. Over time, as your efforts bear fruit, you will feel your inner sense of satisfaction at your accomplishments.
- Have a sense of humor - especially about yourself. Don't take yourself too seriously, keep things in perspective.
- Choosing at least one non-competitive activity is important to have something that doesn't rest on other people's opinions and is easy to measure only against your own past progress. If you want to read everything Dickens wrote, that's a goal that you can complete and it won't have any bearing on anyone's reaction except other Dickens fans. Competing, even if you don't win, can become exciting and does help you sharpen your skills - thereby building your estimation of yourself. In competitive activities, choose those you're reasonably good at or capable of doing well if you apply yourself. Beating your head on brick walls by trying to compete in something where you lack the basic capacity to do it well enough to succeed does not build self esteem, only frustration. A heavy, large youth can try to become strong and fit, lose some weight and try out for football but is unlikely with that build to become a track star.
- Competition in sports and similar activities is healthy when it's fair, within your abilities and played with real enjoyment and respect for others. Competition in which you compare yourself negatively with others and try to be "better" than them is not. You can never know what life is really like for other people. Much of it doesn't show, so setting your standards by other people's clothes, belongings, and rank at the office will simply demoralize you and lower your self-esteem. Someone with thousands of dollars in expensive clothes and electronics may be the one getting bought off by parents who'd rather get a root canal than spend an hour with their kid.
- Keep a written record of your progress toward your goal, whether that's your scores in sports practice, hours studied, dating your sketches, writing out what chords you learned or gaining or losing weight in pounds. Daily small successes are one of the best ways to build self esteem. It's not the state championship that gives you the strength to weather adversity later on, it was all the practice that helped you get on the team in the first place and all the practice before the first game, every one of those games along the way.
Warnings
- Avoid illegal and self destructive goals. Whoever drank the most beer without puking is likely to be an alcoholic, they gain the most alcohol tolerance. Joining a gang may get you a future where prison is your higher education and you can't step back out into a different life. Sex with as many partners as you can get will eventually lead to venereal disease instead of a deep relationship with someone who'll love you for life and treat you well.
- Think of the long term as well as the short term. Sports that aren't easily available in adult life or peak when you're young are great if you're so good that you'll become professional. For many they lead to sitting on a couch at forty remembering glory days instead of looking forward to new triumphs at the bowling alley or racquetball court. A consistently high GPA can lead to full free-ride scholarships, but if your self esteem rests on getting high grades, graduation from college can become a huge shock. Out in the working world, there are no external grades to measure your success by, so be sure at least some of your goals are timeless and not dependent on school facilities.
- Avoid the temptation to turn self-esteem into conceit and arrogance. People with good self-esteem are very attractive. Arrogant louts aren't.
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